Page 45 of Delirium

That was, until her words sank in. I snapped my gaze up to her steely one. “You think you know me well enough to just assume I’m not going to take accountability for my actions?”

“I mean…” She raised a brow, studying me. “I’m willing to admit it might very well just be selective perception, but you’re not exactly helping yourself out here.”

I scoffed. “What is there left to help out? Nash hates me. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be living out in the middle of the goddamn jungle, away from everything and everyone he ever knew. Camp’s already made up his mind about me. And you?”

“Me?” She dropped her arms, stepping away from the door. I didn’t miss the annoyance that flickered in her eyes. “What about me, James? Tell me.”

I furrowed my brow. “Don’t act like you’re shocked. You’ve made it pretty damn clear you can’t stand to be around me. There’s been a few moments here and there, where I thought otherwise, and then I realized I was goddamn delusional for thinking so. You’ve disliked me since I expressed a concern for having a fucking criminal on the boat—which, for the record, I still stand by. But obviously you have no issues with criminals, do you?”

As I waited for her reply, my chest heaved as I struggled to catch my breath, the air as thick as a sauna.

Scarlett looked up at me. I knew exactly what she was doing. “Don’t fucking analyze me, Scarlett. That shit is annoying. If you have something to say, just say it. I’m not your science experiment. Tell me you hate me, and let’s move on. We don’t have to be friends.”

Except when she spoke, the words that left her mouth shocked me. “Does it bother you that I might hate you?”

I glared at the small, dark-haired beauty in front of me, the words spewing from my mouth before I could stop them. “Of course it fucking bothers me. How could it not bother me thinking someone likeyouhates me?”

She took another step forward. The air between us pulsed, thrumming with an unspoken energy. “I didn’t think someone likeyouwas bothered by the opinion of people they considered beneath them.”

My words, twisted and thrown back at me, created a life raft I couldn’t hope to reach before I drowned. The near boiling-point anger simmered, giving way to a raw honesty. “I don’t know what someone like me looks like anymore.”

“Powerful. Intelligent. Quick. Persuasive. Forceful.” Scarlett ticked the words off on her fingers, keeping her eyes on me. “Selfish. Hesitant. Fragile.”

“You think you know me,” I muttered, shaking my head. “You think you can label me like you’ve labelled the rest, but you can’t, Scarlett.”

She didn’t respond to my rebuttal but cocked her head toward the deck. “Nash told us everything after you left. He’s not mad at you. He’s hurt, but he’s not mad. I think it was almost cathartic for him to tell the whole story. I don’t think it would be the worst thing in the world for you two to talk.”

I frowned. “So he can kick me off the boat?”

Scarlett laughed quietly. “He’s not going to kick you off the boat. Really, can you imagine him kickinganyoneoff the boat?”

She turned to leave, but I grabbed her wrist before she could. She looked at me with surprise, and for a brief second I wondered what I was doing. “And you?”

“And me, what?” she asked.

“Are you mad at me?” My voice was nearly a whisper, hating what I was becoming, what she was doing to me, calling out my flaws one by one, and yet not once judging me for them.

“I don’t think that’s the question you really want to ask me.” She shook her head, her still damp hair swinging. “So the answer I’ll give you is no, I don’t hate you, James. I think we’re more similar than you think. Because I think it’s slowly driving you mad that you don’t hateme.”

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” I rasped, the honest to God truth. I’d been spiraling for a long time before I set foot on the boat, and now it felt like my entire world had been turned upside-down. There was more I wanted to say, more confessions I wanted to express, more truths I wanted to give to her. But how did you put into words that nothing felt real anymore? That you weren’t sure all of this wasn’t a dream?

“I know,” she whispered.

For a moment, we connected, not on opposite sides of the fence, but on the same side, trying to make sense of the fucked up world we occupied. For a second. Two. Three.

Then Scarlett pulled away, opening the door. She looked back at me with a glance that told me she saw through my façade all too well. “Talk to Nash. Oh, and James?”

“Yes?” I hated the hope that strung through my voice, taut and expecting.

She smiled at me. A true, genuine smile, one that could light up the world on the day the sun stopped shining. “Nash doesn’t live in the jungle. He lives in the rainforest.”

Fucking hell. I knew there was a reason I found the sun annoying.

Chapter

Seventeen

CAMP

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